Governor needs a civics lesson

Your move to prevent our local city government from managing our financial resources is purely political and government overreach at its worst.

You talk all the time about the federal government meddling in state government but constantly seem to be putting your hand in our city business.

You don’t have the power. The governor of Texas does not have the power to decide and enforce tax policy on behalf of the state.

Here in Taylor County, we’re blessed to have excellent, caring city government and leaders. We’ve tasked them with providing for our local common good, specifically, fixing our roads and creating a great school system. Managing the city becomes really hard when the state continues to defund the school system and not make rural infrastructure a priority. Let’s work together to figure out how we can fund a proper education for our kids and ensure a future workforce worthy of Texas.

In the past, the state distributed funds to cities but you’ve been sending less and less of that so we were forced to make do. The only way left for cities and municipalities to provide roads and schools for us is through sales and property tax.

We need to fix the state tax issues and work toward funding Abilene, not interfering with it. If we’re going to make our education and infrastructure a priority Texas needs substantial tax reform, not empty gestures. Let’s work toward lessening that burden on average, rural people at the state level.

Gov. Abbott, listen: We Texans aren’t babies who require babysitting. We know that everyone has to pay their fair share to ensure good schools, roads and hospitals. There are real problems facing Texas but we can’t do anything about them until we have a functional tax code and budget. We also agree that sales and property taxes are overly burdensome to the middle class and average folks in Taylor County and the Big Country can’t take much more.

But instead of making a purely political move, why don’t we instead try to cut the weed at its root and fix the state tax problems. The state has a massive education deficit and huge healthcare costs but there are solutions to these. If we, as a state, can stay in our lane like we ask the federal government to do then we can solve our state problems and maybe start providing resource to cities like we did in the past.

I know it doesn’t sound as sexy as capping the property tax rate but in the long run it’ll make the lives of us here in the Big Country and Texas a lot better! Let’s do the hard work.

It is my hope that my presumed opponent, Mr. Standard Lambert, will choose to put people over politics and stand with me in opposing this obvious attempt of the governor to put his hand in municipal matters instead of choosing to tackle the difficult problems that face our state.

Gov. Abbott, since you seem to have such a hard time understanding the difference between state and local government, I’ve included a link to an online civics course: https://www.edx.org/course/american-government-harvardx-hks101a-0.